Senior is healthy and training hard again as OK St. eyes threepeat

[Editor's note: German Fernandez finished fifth in the 8K race at the Cowboy Jamboree on Oct. 1 in Stillwater, helping the top-ranked Oklahoma State win the team title.]

Last week a six-page message board thread started with the question: German Fernandez status? What followed was the typical buffet of speculation, rumors, gossip, hearsay, false assumptions, and off-topic one-liners that you would expect from these types of faceless postings. Not one single comment had anything positive, not to mention supportive, to say.

You have to wonder: why not? Here is a guy who has changed the destiny of a program vying to win its third-straight NCAA team championship, a feat that only four schools have accomplished in the 72-year history of Division I cross country.

To clear up the confusion, Fernandez is back, healthy and running after a shortened outdoor season. He explains the nagging Achilles injury that bothered him last spring: “I could train really well, but when it came to racing I didn’t feel like I had any pop in my legs. I couldn’t go from a 65 to a 53. I probably saw five different doctors and we couldn’t figure it out.” So Oklahoma State coach Dave Smith prescribed a two-month break after the Big 12 outdoor championships. It was the longest rest period German has taken since his knee surgery in high school.

Over the summer, Fernandez returned to his hometown of Riverbank, Calif. He hung out with his family and enjoyed the favorable West Coast weather. In mid-July, he began running again. But it was a different kind than before. This was pressure-free. At 7:30 a.m., he typically met his neighbor, Ruben Esparza, a member of UTEP’s cross country championship team in the 1980s, for an hour run. In the afternoon, he biked for 90 minutes and tackled core work and weights.

Fernandez, who turns 21 on Nov. 2, might not be 100 percent yet, but he’s improved. Most of the Cowboys’ varsity runners didn’t compete in the Sept. 3 Hurricane Festival Invitational in Tulsa, but Fernandez and his top-seven teammates will race at the Oct. 1 Cowboy Jamboree in Stillwater and the Oct. 14 Chile Pepper Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark. After that it’s the Big 12 meet in College Station, Texas, then regionals on Nov. 12 in DeKalb Ill., and then the chance to threepeat at the NCAA championships on Nov. 21 in Terre Haute, Ind.

“I think my running has been going the best it has been in the last two years,” Fernandez says of his progress. The 6-foot, 135-pounder is up to 80 miles a week in singles and has been working out with the team since practice began in August. Assessing Fernandez’s fitness, Smith says, “German looks good to me, but he is so talented that he always looks good, even when he is not at 100 percent.”

This fall Smith will keep German’s mileage and intensity down from where it has been in the past. However, Smith notes, “He will still do the majority of our workouts with the front group unless there is some specific reason to hold him back or hold him out. He’s so dang talented that it doesn't take a lot for him to be running among the NCAA’s top guys.”

Feeling rejuvenated, Fernandez has reclaimed his position among the team’s frontrunners. The Cowboys recently did 10 x 1-mile with a minute jog between intervals. “It was probably one of the best workouts we have done as a group,” Fernandez says. “We were averaging 5:09 a mile and we closed in 4:46. Last year around this time we only had two or three people finishing this workout. This year we had six or seven guys finishing. It was great to see.”

Smith credits Fernandez and Colby Lowe with setting the tone for the No. 1 ranked Cowboys. “I never thought I was going to get to run with such a good group of guys,” Fernandez says reflecting on his time at OSU. “We are all on the same page trying to do well for the group.”

That attitude was apparent at the 2010 nationals when Girma Mecheso, Fernandez, and Lowe ran together and finished 7-8-9. As part of the strategy to defend the team title, they let the individual leaders go. “It was hard to not go for the individual title in that particular race,” Fernandez admits. “It was probably one of the easiest races I ran the whole year and when I finished I wasn’t tired. But I would take the team title over the individual title any day.”

The unselfish frame of mind doesn’t mean Fernandez lacks fire. Even when he’s run at a lesser level while injured, he’s always raced hard. It’s just that he’s experienced such incredible highs and frustrating lows — such as winning the NCAA 1500m title as a freshman in 3:39 and then only being able to run 3:44 last year — that it’s hard to believe it’s the same German Fernandez. That’s probably not a fair assessment because all runners suffer injuries, but his early success set the bar incredibly high.

Fernandez ran a world junior mile record of 3:55.02 and also won the NCAA 1500m as a freshman in 2009.

As a high school senior, Fernandez ran an eye-popping 4:00.29/8:34.23 double for 1600m/3200m at the California state meet. Two weeks later at Nike Outdoor Nationals, he broke Jeff Nelson’s 29-year-old national high school record for the 2-mile race with a 8:34.40 effort, as well as Galen Rupp’s 3,000m mark with an en-route split of 7:59.82. (Both of those records were broken by Lukas Verzbicas in June.) He also won two U.S. junior cross country titles and finished 11th in the junior race at the world championships.

But his freshman year is where the ups and downs began. He was on his way to a top-10 finish at the NCAA cross country meet, but suffered an Achilles injury (the trauma was akin to a severe ankle sprain) with a mile to go and couldn’t finish the race. He had a stellar track season the following winter and spring, running a 3:55.02 world junior record in the mile indoors, winning the NCAA 1500m outdoors and placing fifth in the 5,000m at the U.S. championships with an American junior record of 13:25.46.

As a sophomore, he dealt with several injuries and finished 97th at the NCAA championships, but still scored as the team’s No. 5 runner and helped the Cowboys beat Oregon for the team title. But he was injured most of the 2010 track season and redshirted outdoors. He looked back to his old form last fall with his runner-up finish at the Big 12 meet and eighth-place finish at nationals (again helping the Cowboys win the team title), only to have the Achilles injury derail him last spring on the track. To his credit, he won the Big 12 indoor mile last February, but also DNF’ed in the 5,000m at the Big 12 outdoor meet in May. His season-best time of 3:44.18 in the 1500m ranked him No. 36 in the NCAA last spring.

“I wasn’t expecting to be competing with the big boys right off the bat,” Fernandez says of his freshman year. “Every race I was really nervous and that just made me run fast. It was a magical year, and I can’t explain it. I hope I get a magical year again, but I know it will be a building process.”

Now, as a senior that process begins with a different mindset.

“I’m not putting any expectations on myself,” he says of his cross country season. “Most years I’d think I have to be top 10 or I have to go after this time. When I start thinking like that is when I start working myself to a whole different level that I can’t handle sometimes. Sometimes I work too hard and too soon and my body starts breaking.”

Over the last couple of years he’s learned what many college runners have — how to balance patience and consistency with his relentless drive. But, unlike 99.9 percent of his peers, German’s every move is analyzed, scrutinized, even chastised by the insufferable message board crowd. German doesn’t waste his time reading the baseless fodder.

“When you start listening to what other people say it feels like you’ve been hit by a train emotionally,” he says. “I think it gets into your head and you start wondering things like if you are doing the right training, if you’ve made a good decision, and what is my coach doing with me?” He adds, “Injuries are part of running. You just have to learn from it and move on.” Smith, the person who has gotten to know him best during the last four years, paints a picture of Fernandez unknown to most.

“German is a natural leader, but he is not real vocal,” Smith says. “He is more of a leader by character and example. Guys like to follow him. He hasn't always been real comfortable in that role, though. I honestly think he sometimes doesn't understand why people look to follow him. He is only 20 years old but he is a very mature individual and I think he is becoming more comfortable and accepting of his position as a leader.”

Fernandez compares his relationship with Smith to that of a “father and son.”

“Sometimes I don’t always agree with what he says, but I go with it and trust what he says,” Fernandez says. What many don’t know is that Fernandez enjoys playing pranks on Smith, and his teammates love it. Though the details were still being ironed out at press time, Fernandez shared his next escapade with us.

“I’m planning on taking Coach Smith’s car to my house and hopefully he doesn’t find it for a couple of days.” But how will Coach Smith get home from the office? “He can run home,” says Fernandez. “He says he’s in shape. We’ll see how good when he doesn’t have his car.” So one of two things will happen later this fall. The message boards will post that Fernandez has been kicked off the team for repositioning Smith’s car, and no one will believe it. Or German will do what he's done in the past: run for the team and finish in the top 12 or so at the Nov. 21 NCAA championships, and inevitably some 24-minute 5K’er sitting in his parents’ basement in Iowa will opine that German "doesn't have it" anymore and a rush of message board posters will chime in and agree.

As for what to expect, Smith says it best: "He might not be as fit as he can be this cross country season, and in fact I can almost guarantee that he will not be. But hopefully, he will be completely healthy, mentally fresh and chomping at the bit on November 21st."